


Light, changing to shadow

by l_cloudy



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-14
Updated: 2014-02-14
Packaged: 2018-01-12 06:46:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1183129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/l_cloudy/pseuds/l_cloudy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>'Prince Aerys, as a youth, was taken with a certain lady of Casterly Rock, a cousin of Tywin Lannister...'</em><br/>In which Jaime and Cersei are Aerys’s children, and the world knows it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Light, changing to shadow

**Author's Note:**

> I had Lannister feels and then this happened. Weird.  
> Title [from Pink Floyd](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FStB5_yT9o4), as always.

**i.**

Most of the noble Houses in the Westernlands and half of those in the reach had already made plans to travel to Casterly Rock for Tywin Lannister’s wedding, when the bride disappeared.

“She has taken ill,” the Hand of the King would answer, to whomever asked. “And had to leave court. But she will be better in no time.”

Two months later, he was no longer the Hand, and heading home; and three months after that the Lady Joanna did the same, from whatever sept or chapter house she had been hidden in. They were married then, finally; but the King did not attend, and neither did the Queen, who had been such good friends with Lady Joanna in their girlhood.

One year after Joanna’s disappearance, two children were brought to court, a boy and a girl the king recognized as his. They were only a few months old, twins; and their eyes were green.

**ii.**

The king had no times for bastards, but he gave orders to have the children brought up in his household. _A half dragon is better than no dragon_ , he was heard saying, snide remarks meant for Queen Rhaella’s ears, but the queen was nothing if not relieved.

And sometimes perhaps she wondered, glancing at the twins’ green eyes, so much like their mothers, what exactly had happened there. Had they been born of pleasure, or fear and violence?

But she never really wanted to know.

Jaime and Cersei never cared to learn their mother’s name. Or, Cersei didn’t; and Jaime did not care for anything that wasn’t Cersei; or swords and jousting and Rhaegar, at times, but it was mostly Cersei he was taken with.

It was the two of them against the world.

**iii.**

Until the day it wasn’t.

**iv.**

Joanna Lannister died when the twins were eight, giving birth to Tywin Lannister’s only son and heir – a dwarf. If this caused any reaction in the royal household, Cersei Waters didn’t take notice, concerned as she was with the news of the queen’s pregnancy. _Please_ , she prayed to the gods, night and day, _please let it be a boy_. Rhaegar already had a sister he could marry.

And when Prince Viserys was born, seven months later, she forgot herself in excitement and told Jaime as much. “Marry Rhaegar?” he asked, as if the thought had never even passed her mind. _Foolish boy_.

“But I thought I was going to marry you,” he told her, as earnest as a boy of nine could be. “Why does it have to be him?”

They relationship cooled off after that, somehow. but Cersei did not care. It was her _other_ brother she wanted; and she had him, five or six years later, in the grandest wedding the kingdom had ever seen.

**v.**

Her gown had been scarlet at first but she had wanted it darker, the color of blood; and there were rubies in her hair.

Cersei had been legitimized for the wedding, because it would not do for the Crown Prince to marry a bastard girl; but Jaime remained Ser Waters, Arthur Dayne’s recently knighted squire. _Perhaps you could join the Kingsguard, son_ , the king had told him, his voice light with mockery, but Jaime had only smiled.

 _I think not_. He did not want to spend his life guarding on his brother fucking his sister.

Rhaegar promised him he would make him a prince when he was king, and Jaime only raised an eyebrow and asked if it wasn’t too soon to make such plans. But he knew of Rhaegar’s plans, of course, only a blind man wouldn’t.

 _A blind man, and Cersei_.

Tywin Lannister had been invited, of course; but he didn’t come.

Not that Aerys had expected him to.

**vi.**

Cersei’s first child was a daughter; and on the day of her birth Aerys had a man burned alive for the first time.

Or, at least, the servants who brought the charred remains out of the Throne Room assumed that it had been a man. In truth the ashes were that of a woman, the midwife who’d assured the king that his grandchild would be a boy; but she was a common-born woman who wouldn’t be missed, and no one ever knew the truth of her death.

No one but the Kingsguard, who’d been there; and Jaime, whom the king had made stand watch.

He was months shy of his sixteenth birthday; but that was the day he became a man.

**vii.**

Lord Whent organized his tourney and the whole court attended; even Jaime, who went to Rhaegar and told him that he knew what he had been planning.

“Do you now,” his brother answered. “I believe you don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Tell me,” Jaime said. “Please. I can be trusted.”

“Of course you can, brother.” Somehow, Rhaegar made his words sting like knives. “So trustworthy, aren’t you? And loyal.”

 _In the name of the Father I charge you to be just_. Rhaegar had been the one who’d made him a knight, when he was younger and life was simpler.

“To me,” Rhaegar continued. “And to Father, and Cersei most of all.”

“I don’t –” _I don’t care for Father_ , Jaime wanted to say. It was true, and barely short of treason; but it was treason they were discussing then.

But it was also true that he was loyal to Cersei most of all; Cersei who was all he had, beautiful and fierce and golden, no matter that she would never love him as much as he did her, that she was with him only one night for ten that she spent in Rhaegar’s bed. _Cersei most of all_ , because what was Jaime without her?

A sword hand, a mere knight, and the realm was full of them. _And a bastard knight, at that_.

“Please,” Jaime repeated; but Jaime worshipped Cersei as she did Aerys, and he knew Rhaegar would never trust him.

He won all of his jousts that day with the strength of anger, and the next morning charged into the melee like a madman, straight into Robert Baratheon’s warhammer.

When he woke up, the world had changed.

**viii.**

Lyanna Stark’s flowery crown was made of pale winter roses, and would never have matched Cersei’s pale golden gown. Still, she was in a rage.

“If it happens again,” she told Rhaegar. “The bitch is dead.”

He only laughed. “Don’t make threats you cannot keep,” he said. “Who would kill for you? You are only a princess on the king’s say so”.

“And for our wedding.”

“That, too,” he agreed, quietly, too quietly; and she shivered.

**ix.**

Jaime woke up two months after the tourney, in his room in King’s Landing; and the Lord of the West was to be processed for treason on the morning.

“But why?” he asked Rhaegar; not caring that the other man had decided to pretend their conversations had never happened.” There were others there. The Lords of Stark and Tully, Jon Arryn, _you_ …”

“He doesn’t have enough proof. Not for us, not for him, but… there is bad blood between Lord Lannister and the king.”

And he wouldn’t say more.

**x.**

It ended like Rhaegar knew it would, with a Great Lord of the realm screaming in front of the Iron Throne as the fire consumed him; and cries of vengeance and whispers of rebellion.

“They won’t stand for this,” Jaime told Cersei in a whisper, as the flames blazed. “There will be a war.”

She stood still in front of the fire, a perfect marble statue but for her eyes. Green and bright, and Jaime could see the blazes reflecting in them like a mirror; and Cersei, taking it all in.

“Let them.” The voice was so low that he could barely make out the words in the crackling of the flames. “Let them come, and we will fight.”

 _Oh, we will_. He glanced from her to Aerys, the same mesmerized look on both their faces; and then to Rhaegar, pale and jaw-clenched.

They would all fight, that much Jaime knew. _But on whose side?_

**Author's Note:**

> ALSO I'm [on tumblr](http://www.justoldlights.tumblr.com/) a lot lately. It's a thing.


End file.
